Pieter Boddaert

Pieter Boddaert (1730 – 6 May 1795)^[1] was a Dutch physician and naturalist.

Pieter Boddaert
Born	1730 Middelburg, Zeeland, Dutch Republic
Died	6 May 1795 (aged 64–65) Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands
Alma mater	Utrecht University -
Known for	Elenchus Animalium
Scientific career
Fields	Physician, Natural history
Institutions	University of Utrecht
Author abbrev. (zoology)	Bodd.

Early life, family and education

Boddaert was the son of a Middelburg jurist and poet by the same name (1694–1760). The younger Pieter obtained his M.D. at the University of Utrecht in 1764.

Career

He became a lecturer on natural history at his alma mater, University of Utrecht. Fourteen letters survive of his correspondence with Carl Linnaeus between 1768 and 1775.^[2] He was a friend of Albert Schlosser, whose cabinet of "curiosities" of natural history he described.

In 1783 he published 50 copies of an identification key of Edmé-Louis Daubenton's Planches enluminées, the colored plates of illustrations for the comte de Buffon's monumental Histoire Naturelle (published 1749–1789), assigning binomial scientific names to the plates.^[3][4][5] As many of these were the first Linnaean scientific names to be proposed, they remain in use. In 2017 the world list of birds maintained by Frank Gill and David Donsker on behalf of the International Ornithologists' Union included 190 taxa for which Boddaert is cited as the authority. Of these 112 are treated as species and 78 as subspecies. One species, the hoopoe starling, is now extinct.^[6]

In 1784 he published Elenchus Animalium, a "directory of animals" that included the first binomial names for a number of mammals, including the Quagga and the Tarpan.^[7]

Honors and awards

Boddaert is commemorated in the scientific name of a species of South American snake, Mastigodryas boddaerti.^[8]

References

1. Masi, Alberto. "Neornithes: nomina avium - Author A-C". Scricciolo.com. Archived from the original on 2012-02-08. Retrieved 2014-02-21.
2. "The Linnaean Correspondence - Biography". Linnaeus.c18.net. Archived from the original on 2016-12-05. Retrieved 2014-02-21.
3. Newton, Alfred (1893–1896). A Dictionary of Birds. London: Adam and Charles Black. p. 13 Note 2. Archived from the original on 2023-11-13. Retrieved 2023-12-31.
4. Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc de; Martinet, François-Nicolas; Daubenton, Edme-Louis; Daubenton, Louis-Jean-Marie (1765–1783). Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle (in French). Paris: De L'Imprimerie Royale. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.51460. (10 volumes)
5. Boddaert, Pieter (1783). Table des planches enluminéez d'histoire naturelle de M. D'Aubenton : avec les denominations de M.M. de Buffon, Brisson, Edwards, Linnaeus et Latham, precedé d'une notice des principaux ouvrages zoologiques enluminés [Table of illuminated plates of natural history by M. D'Aubenton: with the names of M.M. de Buffon, Brisson, Edwards, Linnaeus and Latham, preceded by a notice of the main illuminated zoological works] (in French). Utrecht. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.39835.
6. Gill, Frank; Donsker, David, eds. (2016). "World Bird List Version 6.4". International Ornithologists' Union. Archived from the original on 4 November 2017. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
7. Boddaert, Pieter (1784). Elenchus animalium (in Latin). Rotterdam: C.R. Hake. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.40283.
8. Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). "Boddaert". The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 29. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5.